Early Touring Car Canopy Top Woman Dog Antique Auto 1900s - RPPC Photo Postcard

USD 45.00

Condition: Not specified

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Description

View Early Touring Car Canopy Top Woman Dog Antique Auto 1900s - RPPC Photo Postcard with current marketplace pricing, condition, product images and item details. Photo Overview. Print analysis. A 5.5x3.5" vintage RPPC photo postcard from the estate of a vintage automobile postcard collector. This was part of a huge collection of antique postcards. Photo Overview This real photo postcard captures a wonderful brass era motoring moment from the early 1900s. A stylish woman in a full-length duster coat and enormous wide-brimmed hat cradles a small dog in her arms while standing beside an early touring car parked on a dirt lane. Behind the automobile a gentleman in a bowler hat and suit stands near the front wheel, and the car itself is a marvel of pioneer motoring - a circa 1904-1906 canopy-top touring car with side-entrance tonneau seating, right-hand drive steering, large brass acetylene headlamps, side carriage lamps, and tall wooden artillery wheels. The fringed canopy surrey top, exposed front axle and springs, and bulkhead-style front all mark this as a very early automobile, photographed on a hedge-lined country lane beside a rough fieldstone wall. This is exactly the kind of candid, unposed-feeling brass era automobile image that early motoring collectors treasure - complete with period fashion, a beloved pet, and a rare canopy-top body style that survived only a few short years before enclosed and folding tops took over. From the estate of a lifelong vintage automobile postcard collector. Historical Notes The canopy-top touring car seen here represents a fleeting transitional moment in automotive design. These fixed surrey-style tops, borrowed directly from horse-drawn carriage practice, were popular from roughly 1903 to 1907 before folding tops and eventually fully enclosed bodies made them obsolete almost overnight. By 1910 a car like this one already looked like an antique, and most were scrapped or left to rot in barns, which is why so few survive today in any form. The elaborate motoring costume worn by the woman - the long dust coat and oversized hat - also disappeared within a decade as windshields and enclosed cabins made such protective attire unnecessary. Images like this one, showing the car in actual use with its proud owners rather than in a showroom, became prized documents of the pioneer motoring age, when driving was still an adventure requiring goggles, grit, and a tolerant dog. Browse our complete RPPC Photo Postcard photograph collection. Text Present On the back, printed: "POST CARD" "CORRESPONDENCE HERE" "NAME AND ADDRESS HERE" Velox stamp box: "VELOX - PLACE STAMP HERE" In pencil at top of back: "YG" and a circled notation "50 w" Print analysis This is an original Type 1 real photo postcard printed on Velox photographic paper. The Velox stamp box with diamond markings in the corners dates the paper stock to approximately 1907-1914, consistent with the automobile and fashion visible in the image. The rich sepia toning, continuous photographic tones with no halftone dot pattern, and period paper all confirm this is a genuine period silver gelatin photographic print made at or very near the time the photograph was taken. Condition All postcards we sell are in fair to excellent vintage condition. Category: Collectibles › Postcards & Supplies › Postcards › Topographical Postcards.